Political Strategist Ralph Reed tells The Brody File that his new political organization called the Faith and Freedom Coalition is a, “a 21st century version of the Christian Coalition on steroids, married with Moveon.org with a sprinkling of the NRA.”
Reed sat down on The Brody File show this past week. We have his 5 minute interview below. Key transcriptions are below as well. Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition has roughly 100,000 members so far and they have set up organizational structures in 15 states. Read more here. Reed says he thought it was time to galvanize social conservatives in 2010 and beyond because after the GOP got their “clock cleaned” in previous elections, Reed decided that, “We just couldn’t wait for the Republican Calvary to show up and do it anymore.”
Ralph Reed: “I guess the best way I would describe it is sort of a 21st century version of the Christian Coalition on steroids, married with Moveon.org with a sprinkling of the NRA.”
Ralph Reed: “I think it’s going to be a major force for good to harness a lot of the grassroots energy that’s out there right now.”
Ralph Reed: “I really see it as a permanent fixture on the American political landscape that really holds both political parties accountable. I think the Republicans lost their way particularly with regard to spending and I think the Democrats have lost their way on a whole range of issues from spending, to the war on terror, to values and life and marriage.”
Ralph Reed: “It’s really a synthesis of the traditional fiscal wing of conservatism and social conservatives. I believe you can marry those two because I think ultimately freedom is indivisible. I don’t think you can have a strong economy if you don’t have strong families, marriages and people living by the Golden Rule. If you don’t have people who operate according to the Golden Rule and according to basic internal values of right and wrong you end up with things like the crisis on Wall Street which was not just a fiscal crisis lets be clear. It was also a crisis of a lot of people gaming the system, a lot of people overleveraging in debt, violating a lot of Biblical principles of a sound economy.”
Ralph Reed: “I think social conservatives are realizing if you protect marriage and you protect life but the federal government is destroying our future through a 20 trillion dollar debt that threatens our future just as much as moral decay does. These are all moral issues. I’ve never thought that the moral or cultural agenda was narrowly defined to just two or three issues. I think taxes, spending, economic issues and by the way including the war on terror. I mean that to me is an issue of right and wrong and whether or not America is going to be an arbiter of combating evil and extending freedom to people who haven’t known it around the World.”